DelicieuxzWhat you're arguing for, that a license can be enforceably terminated for modifying a personal instance of a GPL software

As soon as you distribute the software, binary or source, in any form, commercially or non-commercially, the GPL applies to you. In the case of the AGPL, providing an online service also counts as distributing the software.

As long as the modified software doesn't leave your own personal hardware, no foul. If you give it to a friend, bam, the GPL applies. You upload the source to Github, blam, the GPL applies.

And if you violate the GPL, the license is forfeit, and you can't use the software at all anymore. (The details here, exactly when that happens and when you're in good standing again, differs between the GPLv2 and GPLv3.)

[Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice.]

...Also, how the heck did a discussion about licenses start here in the article comments? O_o

thykrYou have to keep in mind that the developers are human beings too.
The person who did this probably had a bad day, was very fed up already and read this review and took it personally or something, which lead to them over-reacting. It happens to everybody once in a while.

It doesn't help that game devs are basically expected to interact with reviews, especially if they're going the early access route.

This is completely different from, say, the writing community. There, "don't read reviews" is a common mantra, and if you do read a review, don't respond to it. There's a few examples where writers did respond to user reviews badly (Anne Rice is an often quoted example), and it never reflected well on them.

Writing a helpful review is a skill like any other, any most people are not particularily good at it. Now imagine wading through lots of lots of user reviews, most of them not really all that useful to you to improve on your craft, most of them contradicting each other, some laced with insults against the work you've spent considerable time on.

Sure, lashing out doesn't help either, and it's a crappy thing to do, but it is, in parts, understandable that it might happen.

BeamboomTheir dedication is of a very wide nature and involves a lot of areas. Examples are aplenty: Linux version of Visual Studio Code (and a bloody good editor it is too) and MSSQL server, investment in time and money on the Linux Foundation, cooperation with both Canonical and Redhat on running their distros on Azure and Windows 10, change to supporting GIT over their own versioning system, I mean... I could go on and on. The list really is extensive. This is just how it is.

QuoteMost importantly, the non-aggression pact only applies to the upstream versions of software, including Linux itself. [...] While we at Conservancy were successful in getting the code that implements exfat for Linux released under GPL (by Samsung), that code has not been upstreamed into Linux. So, Microsoft has not included any patents they might hold on exfat into the patent non-aggression pact.

Yes, when it benefitted them. And then they sold their user's data to advertisers, because that benefitted them as well. And they kept quiet about data breaches, because that benefitted them. As long as they can make money, all is fair game to them. Capitalism.

BeamboomAnd don't forget that Valve is a corporation too

Yes, and it should be well known that I have a heck of a lot of issues with Valve.

BeamboomAs well as Feral

And hell do I have problems with Feral. I mean, I *did* have a job interview with them a few years ago. And I did not sign the contract they've offered me.

I repeat: cooperations are not your friend.

BeamboomMicrosoft has changed attitude towards Linux, That's just how it is.

If that's what you need to tell yourself to sleep at night, fine. But I'm telling you, you have a too romanticized view on it.

They "support" Linux where they have to, because they couldn't shut out the competition. Coorporations are not your friends, especially not big ones like Microsoft (and neither is Apple, or Google, or EA, or Amazon, or...).

If they are such a great Linux supporter, show me their recent games running on Linux. State of Decay 2 and Sea of Thieves, both Unreal Engine 4 games. Do they run on Linux? Nope. Heck, you can't even buy them on Steam. Forza Horizon 4? Nope. Ori and the Blind Forest? It's a Unity game! Linux support? Nope.